Today I read about the new iamallwoman project. Iamallwoman was born by a model, Charlie Howard, who broke with the “normal” modelling industry less than a year ago. The idea behind this project is to go against the lack of diversity in the modelling industry. The idea is that every woman is beautiful, what we have been preaching for years.
The most important thing is that the iamallwoman project is about all women of all shapes and sizes, without retouching. When we launched our #unretouchedbeauty campaign, we were singing the same chords. Beauty as it really is, perfect in its imperfection and beautiful in its entirety. So why is this body-positive message so important, especially for you, who are looking skeptically at your own reflection?
Why the iamallwoman matters?
The iamallwoman project is important. Not only it focuses on the right message to send to all the women, like similar projects including our own #unretouchedbeauty. The iamallwoman is a key message because it generates from the models whose bodies are so often reshaped and manipulated. It is a message that even the subject of the “pixel perfect photo” had enough.
The iamallwoman project does not matter just for models. That’s not the big deal. The iamallwoman matter to you, because the message that is sent out is for everyone. It is about shape, size, colour and it is about liberating yourself from the pressure of the perfect body.
iamallwoman means stop to the body shaming
Pushing so hard on retouching lead to a terrible body image in women. What many women that read the glossy magazines don’t realise is that the first women to be shamed for their bodies are the ones that are on the pages of those magazines. The message that editors and brands are sending out is that you are not good enough.
Media are absolutely shaming the body of women. The less perfect you are, the more they will sell. The more perfect the model in the magazine look, the more ashamed you will feel. All this sells beauty product, in an industry that makes billions by telling us we are not good enough. Paraphrasing Charlie I say “Here’s a big F*** YOU” to this! We say: forget about what media want you to think as perfection, as the “perfect bodies” you relate to are the first to have enough!
Why did we stop shooting fashion? The grape incident
Our brand has always drawn inspiration from the editorial and fashion world. That is where we pushed our career in our early days of photography. Alas, we decided to move away from the fashion world very early thanks to “the grape incident”. Actually, we went the other way around, by shooting women which were not model.
The grape incident was nothing more than a simple chat with a model. A stylist in one of our editorial was complaining that the model was not thin enough. Funnily enough, at least if you do sarcasm, was the fact that Faby and I were looking at the model thinking she should have eaten a bit more. Actually, we went on and offered everyone in the team something to nibble. When I offered the model some grape, she said that she loved grape, especially frozen grape. I thought that it was a great idea to cool ourselves down with frozen grape. Unfortunately the model went on saying:
“When you eat frozen grape, it takes time to suckle it, so in 20 minutes you can eat just one or two, and by that time your body feels full, so you can eat less.”
That was the last time we shoot a fashion editorial with the typical fashion models. It is about healthy and positive body image.
What can you do?
The real thing behind iamallwoman is body acceptance. You may not feel perfect, or you may even feel ashamed to look at your bare body in front of the mirror. Now, what these models are telling you is that they had enough of being treated as imperfect pieces of meat. They had enough of feeling ashamed for being normal women, with cellulites, with some gentle curves here and there. These models are telling you that you are gorgeous for who you truly are. They are showing their bodies in their “perfect imperfection” to show you that there is nothing you should fear. So, what is the iamallwoman all about if not everything about the real you?
Take the bull by the horn and join them in saying iamallwoman. No matter your age, your size, shape and colour. You are all that matters, because you are beautiful for who you truly are!
To celebrate the iamallwoman project and our own #unretouchedbeauty campaign, we have added some stunning unretouched images to this post. They are about being true to yourself, because if she can do it, you can do it!
